TRUMBULL COUNTY Furthercuts, layoffs avoided

The prosecutor and auditor are calling for the creation of a financial overseer.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Propelled by unexpectedly good sales tax receipts, Trumbull County commissioners will skate to the end of the year without the need for any additional cuts or layoffs, the county budget commission has concluded.
On Tuesday, the commission -- composed of the county auditor, treasurer and prosecutor -- certified that the county sales tax will reap $750,000 more than anticipated in 2003.
The money should be enough to cover expenses through the end of the year, they said.
"Some departments took needed cuts, and they took all the layoffs that were necessary," said Auditor David Hines.
Urged hiring administrator
Hines and Prosecutor Dennis Watkins joined the choir of voices calling for county commissioners to consider hiring a full-time administrator with responsibility for budgets.
"This is a priority," Watkins said. "You need somebody to determine what each department gets and to go over all the spending."
A commission put together by county commissioners last year to study the need for a sales tax increase recommended that the county hire a budget director. A pledge from the three commissioners to do so if the sales tax passed in November was a condition for an endorsement of the tax measure from the Regional Chamber.
Voters rejected the sales tax by a margin of more than 4-1.
"I think it is a good idea," said county Commissioner Joseph Angelo Jr. "We need to have that position when we have money to create it."
Mayor disagrees
With employees furloughed since a round of budget cut-backs in March, it would be "inappropriate" to create a position now, Angelo said.
Mahoning County commissioners employ both a full-time budget director and a full-time administrator, in addition to the commissioners' clerk. In Trumbull County, the clerk of the board also holds the administrator title.
If commissioners take no action, the budget for 2004 will be at about the same level as 2003, thanks to a one-year, 0.5 percent piggy-back sales tax imposed midway through the year.
However, the county is due for another budget crisis in 2005, when -- if no action is taken -- the budget will take a $4 million hit after the tax expires.
In a letter sent the day after Election Day, Hines urged commissioners to prepare a two-year operating budget, and to work on a five-year plan outlining capitol improvements.
Angelo said it is hard to plan more than a year into the future because the state frequently changes the level it funds counties and the expenditures it requires from them.
siff@vindy.com